BrandMa.com

Building Strong Brands

Building Strong Brands-Because Might Is Not Always Right

Do brands really need to be strong? The answer to this question is yes and is obvious to most of us. The reason though quite apparent often goes unnoticed. We see it everyday. Brands wrestle each other in the arena we call the marketplace. Moreover, as in the case of wrestling, the winner does not win simply by might. Very often, it is the player’s strategy and technique that gets him to win. Thus, in the game of wrestling, it’s the strength on mind that is put to test and not the strength of muscle.

How does all of this translate into marketing? The fact remains that in marketing too, brands must not only be strong physically but they need to be strong intellectually. Thus building strong brands is more a function of creating sound strategy than simply the function of the market share of the brand. This means that just because a brand is doing well commercially, it does not imply that it is a strong brand. There could be other factors that may be contributing to its commercial success. It may so happen that most of these factors will be external to the brand and may not have anything to do with the brand. Building strong brands requires brands-even the market leaders, to introspect and realize their inner potential. There needs to be a clear-cut distinction between the brand’s intrinsic strengths and external opportunities, both of which may be contributing to the brand’s success.

The difference between the two however, is that while brand strengths are inherent, external opportunities will be fleeting and may follow the axiom of easy come easy go. If one is looking forward to building a strong brand, one cannot therefore, count on the external opportunities for strength. The strength of a brand must come from within and must not be confused with windfall opportunities in the marketplace.

An interesting motive for building strong brands is that brand strengths are unique for each brand. Marketplace opportunities however, while contributing to the success of the brand are not unique and other players in the marketplace can also avail of them. Thus while building strong brands the motto must be for the brand to achieve self-reliance and do away with dependence on providence.

Another aspect of building strong brands is that the strengths of the brand must be cultivated and communicated to the target audience. Once the basic strengths of the brand have been identified, the key is to understand how more value can be delivered using those strengths. However, there may be some brands which may not have any exceptional strengths. In this scenario, brands must consciously cultivate those strengths that make them stand out in the marketplace. However, building of a strong brand does not stop at that. There is a need to communicate the brand strengths and value offering to the target masses.

The above process of building strong brands surely seems to be a time-consuming, tricky and complex one. Nonetheless, in the arena called the marketplace, where brands must either do or die, they must either be strong enough to wrestle competition or be prepared to lose to the others and perish for good.

Branding Agency

Can a Branding Agency Give You a Bigger Bang for Your Buck?

As today’s consumer becomes more informed yet more spoilt for choice, more responsive yet less loyal and more clued-in yet more clued out; the advertising agency is rapidly becoming passé. Taking their place as the new darling of marketers is the new force- the branding agency. The reason perhaps is that marketers today, realize the need for an integrated approach towards brand communications.

Furthermore, they have also arrived at the conclusion that brand communication is not the last word in marketing. This means that merely communicating with the target audience isn’t enough. The perceptions of the consumers must be measured pre and post the brand communication to know the difference if any. The fray does not stop there. Marketers today must be in a position to change these perceptions too. Sounds tough? Well, not if you are consulting a branding agency.

A branding agency goes beyond the purview of brand communications by trying to measure the efficacy of the communication. If a particular brand message has gone down well with the target audience, the branding agency assesses whether this will impact sales or not. The branding agency also helps marketers understand consumer behavior. However, if a specific piece of brand communication has failed, this too is analyzed by the branding agency. The learnings obtained are then incorporated in the next piece of communication.

Also, the process of measurement often causes branding agencies to stumble upon dormant marketing opportunities and perceive threats in the marketplace well in advance. This valuable information is then passed on to the clients of the branding agency.

Besides measuring consumer perceptions, a branding agency also helps marketers to change these perceptions favorably. Though this may sound far-fetched and unbelievable, it is true all the same. And the trick that the branding agency employs is to simply go that extra step in knowing the consumers.

To give you a simple metaphor, engaging the services of an advertising agency is like enrolling in a dating program where you volunteer some information about yourself and then wait for prospective dates to come around. On the other hand partnering with a branding agency is like enlisting the help of a dating service that goes one step ahead. This dating service will not only showcase information about you to the prospects but also ask for their feedback, analyze it, get back to you with constructive suggestions, work with you on your areas of improvements and present you to the same prospects as the loveliest creature to have lived on planet Earth. Thus while one service is reactive the other is proactive.

If I asked you to choose between the above dating alternatives, which one would you prefer? Your answer is obvious and so is the reason for fall of the advertising agency and rise of the branding agency.

Branding and Marketing

The Final Word on Branding and Marketing

(Taken from an interview with the marketing guru, Ajeet Khurana as he demystifies marketing)

One of the most debated topics of the business world has been determining whether the terms branding and marketing are synonyms or not. The fact however is that branding and marketing though often used synonymously are in fact distinct terms. While one can encounter various definitions of marketing, the one that best describes the phenomenon states that marketing encompasses all functions regarding the offering of products or services. Branding on the other hand can be considered as a valuable tool of marketing.

Let us consider the example of the world’s biggest cola makers-Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The makers of almost similar tasting colas have been extremely successful at using branding as a tool. They have in fact managed to brand and thereby market an extremely generic product like cola using the various marketing tools.

Branding and Marketing- the Right Combination:
Branding is not the sole and not always a tool of marketing. In fact for a new product to be introduced in the market, branding is the slowest tool. New entrants often prefer using direct marketing, direct selling, promotion and even tactical advertising to some extent to aid the process of marketing. Branding only commences at this stage and the focus is on using the other tools of marketing.

However, bigger players in the market do not necessarily adopt this approach while launching product extensions. These players begin building brands for any of their product extensions right from the start. This is probably because they understand the importance of branding and also have the dough to invest in the same.

Branding and Marketing- Incidental or Intentional?
While we look at brand creation and brand building as a deliberate exercise, one must concede that most of the biggest brands were created accidentally. The creators of the brands were selling products before they were selling brands. They did not concentrate on the deliberate creation of a logo, image, positioning etc, when they started out. But branding happened and it happened incidentally. Thus, even when you do not brand intentionally, the unique properties of a product often tend to make a brand out of it.

Branding or Marketing- Who’s the Boss?
While a lot of discussion has taken place on whether branding and marketing should be separate functions or not, by the very definitions of the terms, it is clear that marketing is the parent function, while branding is the subsidiary one. Thus, branding comes under the purview of marketing and branding strategies and objectives must ultimately fall in line with the marketing strategies and objectives.

Brand Strategy

Brand Strategy- The Art of Check-mating Your Competition

If one were to observe closely, the similarities between the game of chess and the practice of marketing become apparent. Thereafter it all begins to fall into place. In chess, the opponents try to gain victory by shrewdly moving across the chessboard towards the other’s king while safely guarding their kingdom. Likewise in marketing too, your competitors are constantly trying to win over the consumer of your products who in today’s marketplace is nothing short of a king. However, their efforts are not unmatched and you as a marketer try hard to get to your opponents consumers while trying your level best to retain your own.

A fact that any true-blue chess aficionado will know for sure is that the key to winning the game lies not in adopting a reactive approach. It rests in a shrewd and astute strategy a player must adopt even before the game begins. It is this strategy that guides each of his decisions during the game.

However, in marketing, unlike chess, while the basic rules are set, no one really knows the intricacies of the dynamic chessboard that we call the marketplace. This however, does not imply that marketers simply give up on strategy making to win this overwhelming and seemingly insolvable game. If anything, this forms the basis for the need for strategic marketing. Thus, marketing too, like the game of chess, requires marketers to be vigilant and be calculative of the competition’s moves.

Furthermore, marketing organizations use brands as pawns to reach the king of the marketplace that is the consumer. But once again, unlike chess, in marketing each of these pawns does not exert the same clout nor command the same respect in the marketplace. Each brand has its own brand associations, brand image, brand identity and brand equity. A brand strategy helps marketers instill perceived value into their brands thereby making them pawns that help them win the game.

There is no doubt therefore that brand strategy is important. But what does an effective brand strategy entail? The following is a list of some of the attributes that are essential for a successful brand strategy.

• PracticalityThe brand strategy must identify the strengths and weaknesses of the brand and must then aim at capitalizing on these strengths and neutralizing the weaknesses.
• Flexibility The brand strategy must be able to accommodate windfall changes, changing preferences of the consumers, altering moves of the opponents and other marketplace dynamics.
• Foresight The strategy should be logical, consistent and should be able to provide foresight to the marketer.
• Measurability The efforts that have been involved in strategy-building and implementing of the same as well the results derived should be measurable at any point of time.
• Periodic review A well-timed and appropriate review of the brand strategy must be conducted periodically so as to take advantage of opportunities and forecast any threats.
• Back-up The brand strategy must provide for a contingency arrangement, if things don’t go as per plan.

These features should help you assess the practicality and usability of a brand strategy.

Now that you are now familiar with the essentials of a brand strategy, what are you waiting for? Get you pawns in action and get ready to checkmate your opponents.

Happy Marketing!

Branding Services

Branding Services- What Lies Behind the Wizard’s Curtain

From an historical perspective, services always developed in civilizations before products did. Then came the industrial revolution and products dominated the marketplace. However, history is famous for repeating itself and therefore in the new economy, services have begun to reclaim their share of the consumer’s money once again.

However, this reinvention and resurrection of the service economy has not been supported adequately by theoretical studies on service marketing. This is because the majority of marketing literature post the industrial revolution was dedicated towards marketing of products.

Due to lack of adequate academic information on the subject, service marketers have had to face many challenges in the marketplace, unguided. But, many of them have succeeded and today some of the best brands in the world are service brands. So how did they do it?

Leo Tolstoy once said that all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Similarly, all successful brands are alike; each unsuccessful brand is unsuccessful in its own way. Thus we can conclude that there surely exist some common traits that can be observed in each one of these successful service brands. While one could go on and on, drawing a million comparisons between the various successful service brands, there seems to emerge one common mantra that they all adopted for branding services.

The mantra in question is the 4-M approach. This mantra breaks down the process of service brand management into managing of 4 specific attributes. This makes the planning, implementing and evaluation of any marketing scheme relatively simple and straightforward.

The 4-M approach centers on the 4 basic elements that a service provider must manage for branding services effectively. In a nutshell the 4-M approach involves

1. Managing Egos- People always react negatively when they perceive a threat. Also, research has shown that more than the physical threat; it is threat to one’s sense of self-one’s ego that elicits the most negative response. Thus managing egos is important in maintaining healthy and positive relationships with the company’s customers-both internal as well as the external. Only if the internal customers (employees) feel safe and do not perceive any threat to their egos, will they provide superior service to the external customers.
2. Managing Perceptions- Brands are not static but are continuously evolving and changing with changing customer perceptions. Thus, a brand is not simply the promise of said quality but is in fact a manifestation of consumer perceptions of that promise- whether they see it as useful or not, truthful or not, consistent or not etc. Thus, managing perceptions of both internal and external customers is crucial in branding services.
3. Managing Attitudes- What people think about you matters! In any service, people are the walking billboards of the company. As primary service providers they interact with customers directly to deliver the service. What they think about the company is invariably reflected in the service they deliver. Thus, managing their opinions is critical in branding services. Also, each satisfied customer can direct another ten prospects towards your service. This word-of mouth publicity which is unique to the service industry can only be leveraged if your customers think highly of you as a service provider.
4. Managing Awareness- Goods have the advantage of ocular presence and physical existence. This tangibility helps consumers to first experience the product through the various senses, build a perception about the same and then decide to buy or not. However, in the case of services, the intangibility of the service causes the customer to buy the product and then decide whether it appealed to their senses or not. Branding services therefore becomes extremely tricky since there are very few ways of creating brand awareness and conveying the brand promise to the customers. Nevertheless, managing service awareness, though challenging can be achieved using physical evidence and media. Physical evidence refers to the material touch and feel factors that accompany the service and these are important in conveying the brand promise to the customers. Media on the other hand, is extremely useful in branding services by creating brand awareness.

A moment of truth is referred to as the customer’s encounter with a service. Each moment of truth influences customer perceptions and opinions about the service. Branding services ensures that these moments of truth become moments of reliance and not moments of regret.

Brand Campaign

Brand Campaign – Your Brand’s Lifeline!

(Taken from an interview with marketing guru, Ajeet Khurana as he demystifies marketing)

Marketing being the ever evolving and dynamic field that it is, a lot of buzzwords and theories are continuously being coined. However, one catchphrase that has caught the fancy of many a marketing professional has been “Brand Campaign.”

A brand campaign is the deployment of all of one’s branding tools over a period of time. These branding tools are in fact all forms and media of brand communications. Thus, advertising, public relations, brand experience, brand imagery etc, are a few of the branding tools that can be used in a brand campaign. When these tools are utilized optimally, it leads to a positive brand image in the minds of the target population. A successful brand campaign, which has used these resources judiciously, also causes high brand recall among the consumers.

However, utilizing branding tools strategically is easier said than done. It requires sacrificing on short term goals to fulfill the long term and larger brand goals. But then the wisest choices are often the most difficult to trail. Thus, though following a brand campaign is a wise decision, sticking to it is difficult. Noted marketing guru, Ajeet Khurana defines the two cardinal rules to be followed in order to create a successful brand campaign.

Identify and Define Expected Outcomes
One very important step to be taken even before one decides what the brand campaign will entail is to define the results you are expecting. This helps in deciding which tools are to be used in achieving the desired outcomes. This also prevents attaching of unrealistic expectations to the results. Using the outcomes as standards against which performance can be measured can also assess the effectiveness and the efficiency of the brand campaign.

Synchronize all Tools of the Brand Campaign
Each of the tools of branding has their own advantages and disadvantages. Advertising for example is the most scalable and most popular tool. However, it may not always be the most effective or the most cost efficient. Thus, an optimum mix of the various tools will ensure a successful brand campaign. However, simply employing all the tools is not enough. The tools, each one of them, have to be in sync. This means that the message that is being communicated must be standard across all forms brand communication. Thus, if advertising is touting a particular product as being a premium one, the brand experience provided through below the line promotional marketing should also have the same superlative touch and feel.

The bazaar today is cluttered not only with increasingly homogenous products but also increasingly heterogeneous consumer segments. In this situation, only brands that communicate strategically with their consumers will survive in the long run. A brand campaign is what adds this quintessential strategic element and draws the line between brands that live and those that shall perish.

Branding Strategies- Fight, Flight or Freeze?

As children, we all have heard stories of great warrio

Branding Strategies

rs who have battled many an enemy with their incredible valor. These heroes were glorified and even deified in some cultures. Such was the impact of the tales that even now as adults; most of us believe that fighting the enemy head-on is the noblest, most sensible and therefore the best thing to do in a stressful situation. In all these stories, there were also men who decided to remain motionless as they first assessed the perceived threat before reacting and still others who (probably wisely) took to their heels when posed with a threat. But none of these people were ever respected in any of the chronicles. This probably added to our belief that “bravery” was the best policy.

Reality check! People work differently in different situations. You too must have altered between fighting, freezing and fleeing depending on the situation. The dynamic marketplace too, requires this kind of flexibility from the marketers.

To illustrate this, let us consider three situations where the strategies of fight, freeze and flee will apply.

Situation 1
You have been a market leader in a particular segment. You have a positive brand image, occupy a distinctive brand positioning and have gained economies of scale as well as flawless proficiency in product/service delivery. Of late there has been an unprecedented influx of newer players in the field.
What do you do- fight, freeze or flee?
Answer- Fight. While you are the market leader quantitatively i.e. in terms of the sales figures, you also have the qualitative relationship you share with your consumers going for you. The economies you have achieved will help you pass on the monetary benefit of the same, to your consumers in terms of lowered prices-something which newer players will find difficult to achieve. However, do not indulge in a price-war unless your competition begins to do so first. This will ensure you don’t lose market share. As far as the fighting to retain your consumers is concerned, aggressive brand building measures such as exalting the long relationship you have shared, focusing on lauding trusted quality and strengthening the existing positioning are likely to work.

Situation 2
Your competitor has come up with an unusual, extraordinary ad campaign out of the blue. The ad has excellent production values and even has a celebrity making it seem even slicker. Your agency is convinced the competitor’s ad is “strategically sound” and that you must respond with an effective campaign of your own now.
What do you do- fight, freeze or flee?
Answer- Freeze. While knee-jerk, reactive advertising seems like the most natural thing to do, the fact is that the competitor’s ad is one that has been based on a new concept. And new does not always mean good. There is no way to predict if the ad and its strategy will work with the target audience or not. The best thing would be to wait and watch how the market reacts to the ad. There is a possibility that the ad might work for the brand and there is another that it may not. If it does work with the consumers, you and your agency will now have gained insight into the minds of the consumers and will be able to react using this very insight as a weapon in your arsenal. But if the ad fails, you will still gain an insight into what will not work with the consumers for sure. Think of this opportunity as a costly experiment funded by your competitor’s advertising dollars and whose results benefit you in every way.

Situation 3
You have recently entered a niche market, with a small consumer base but very little competition before you. You know that you won’t be able to break even at least for the next 10 months. Suddenly, a Fortune 500 company enters your market, looking for a product extension.
What do you do- fight, freeze or flee?
Answer- Flee. Yes. Take to you heels. The Fortune 500 competitor not only has the expertise and money to brand extensively but it also advantaged as it is merely extending a brand, which is probably an established one. You on the other hand, have just set up your venture, have not broken even yet and therefore do not have the financial prowess to fight the giant. It would do you well to wind-up as soon as you can, because breaking even with such stiff competition is a niche market, seems implausible.

Lastly, the one thing to remember is that the best strategy is to not have a single strategy in the long run and to alternate between the ones available to you as per the demands of the situation. This will ensure flexibility in your business model as well as make it difficult for your competition to predict your next move.

Building Brand Equity-Being Pound Wise

Building Brand Equity

When it comes to building brand equity, marketers often find themselves in a catch-22 situation. After all, there is no escape from the universal problem of scarce resources. By resources here I mean an organization’s marketing budget which though adequate on the face of it, often proves insufficient if the marketer tries to pursue the objectives of tactical and brand communication simultaneously.

Tactical communication is the communication of sales promotion offers and is directly aimed at encouraging sales. Brand communication however, aims at establishing contact which is deeper than sales and is aimed at building brand equity. Tactical communication is often employed to increase sales in the short run while brand communication aims at building long term relationships with the consumers.

It comes as no surprise then that the sales team always insists on tactical communication in order to promote sales while the brand strategy team persists in its demand for more brand communication. It is the marketer who is then burdened with the difficult decision of dividing the marketing budget between two departments that seem to moving in opposite directions.

The classic dilemma of short term gains over long term investment grips the marketer. Ergo, more often than not, marketers give into the lure of short-term tactical communication and give up on the more conscious act of building brand equity. These marketers believe that enhancing sales is the primary objective and building brand equity is incidental. Perhaps it is this shortsightedness that causes many a marketer to give up on building brand equity. What they fail to see is that building brand equity is in fact the primary objective, focusing on which will invariably result in sales.

Moreover, though prima facie, building brand equity seems to be in contention with the objective of enhancing sales, both are in fact part of the larger objective, which is to deliver value to consumers while earning reasonable profit for the organization. Nonetheless, the constant struggle for resources between the two objectives makes it inevitable for the marketer to prioritize and chose one as primary. However, as stated earlier, building brand equity should be given priority over short-term sales encouragement.

The reason is simply that once you have converted you product into a brand, there are a lot more factors that come into play during the buying process. Archetypical laws of demand and supply no longer effect sales. Emotional bonding with the brand as well as brand image, brand identity and brand equity all influence the consumers’ buying decisions. Once the aim of building brand equity is being pursued, consumers will have a favorable image of the brand. As they view your brand through rose-tinted glasses, everything about the brand will seem positive. The consumers will become brand loyalists and increase in the price, increase in supply and other factors that would have otherwise cause fluctuations in demand, will no longer affect your market share. That’s not all. Brand loyalists are also the channels of word of mouth publicity and can act as walking bill-boards for your brand, thereby increasing sales in the long run.

In this way by fulfilling the objective building brand equity, not only does a brand get assured sales from its existing consumers but also stand to gain from the incremental sales caused due to referrals by existing consumers.